Key pre-electoral identification process delayed

The start of a process to identify Ivorian nationals, key to holding presidential elections in Cote d’Ivoire later this year, has been held up by President Laurent Gbagbo, local newspapers said on Friday. At a cabinet meeting last Wednesday, the Justice Ministry proposed sending 300 legal staff to the rebel-held north of the country to organise local hearings and identify Ivorians aged 13 years or older who do not have birth certificates or other documents proving their nationality. A total 150 judges and 150 clerks working alongside local representatives of the national identification office would need two months to establish a list of Ivorians eligible to vote in the presidential elections, which are to be held by October 2006. The proposal by Justice Minister Amadou Koné, approved at an earlier government meeting, was held up by Gbagbo on the grounds that it needed 'further reflection', according to a statement issued after the cabinet meeting. An estimated three million Ivorians do not have nationality documents or voting cards. At a groundbreaking summit last month, the five main players of the conflict agreed in principle that the identification process could go hand in hand with establishing voting cards. But Gbagbo appears to have changed his mind, saying he prefers to use voters' lists dating from the 2000 presidential elections and complete the identification process only after the polls, according to Notre Voie, the newspaper of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). The presidency was not immediately available for comment. The European Union is to contribute 10.5 million euros for the identification exercise. In other developments, a meeting between rebel and army chiefs to resume disarmament talks for the first time in more than a year has been scheduled for Saturday in the political capital Yamoussoukro. Rebel and army chiefs had been meeting regularly to discuss disarmament under previous peace plans, but talks were aborted when the Ivorian army shattered a cease-fire agreement by launching air raids on rebel targets in November 2004. Interim Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny is overseeing a new UN-backed peace plan providing for elections by October.